It was our fifth wedding anniversary and 10-year dating anniversary. My mom was in town. My sister had to fly home the day before and I was still feeling sad about it. Even though I knew it was a busy week, I didn’t want to fuss over re-scheduling my counselling appointment.
After what I thought was a pretty routine appointment, my counsellor recommended we try putting me on anti-anxiety medication. I was a little bit shocked – I had been working so hard with her for the better part of a year. I had integrated a daily meditation, I cut back on the number of regular activities I was committed to, I was trying really hard to gracefully say “no” more often.
I thought that I was just still anxious because I wasn’t working hard enough on self care or cognitive behavioural therapy. It wasn’t until that day that I realized I wasn’t stressed out, I was really sick.
My husband helped me schedule my first appointment after I finally opened up about how hard I was struggling. He could see some of the obvious signs – I was regularly having panic attacks. Being even a few minutes late or missing a bus resulted in tears and cancelled events. I was experiencing severe imposter syndrome while trying to apply for a Masters program. I could barely look in the mirror and would break down if looked for too long.
There were invisible anxieties and things I tried to hide too. I was having trouble driving or riding in cars because I spent the whole time imagining all the ways I could die in a horrible accident so that I would be remembered as young and bright before anyone found out otherwise. After volleyball games, I spent hours re-playing every mistake I made whether we won or lost – it’s an adult recreational volleyball league. I stole lancets at a blood donation appointment so that I could prick my fingers when the anxiety was too much. I plucked entire sections of my legs. While waiting for counselling appointment to come, I had my husband hide our nail kit, my sewing needles, prescription medications and anything else I might have been tempted with.
Counselling helped with the negative behaviours, but the anxiety was still ever-present. Working with the same counsellor for several months gave me confidence in her recommendation of medication, but I was still scared. I am the first to share and re-post stories about de-stigmatizing mental health, and have always supported my friends without judgement, but I couldn’t apply those same principles to myself. I wondered what people would think of me and if they would treat me differently if they knew. I came home and didn’t mention anything about it.
All day I could only think “Happy anniversary – here’s some SSRIs!”
Part of me was relieved to have a solution, but still felt like I had somehow failed, and that I could beat anxiety if I worked a harder. But it turns out that self-care was never going to fix a serotonin imbalance in my brain.
The effects were immediate. It felt like taking a full breath of air after wearing a corset my whole life. It felt like putting on glasses for the first time. I found myself literally stopping to smell the roses.
My biggest fear was that SSRIs would make me feel emotionally flat and uncaring. I cried on day two, three and four because I didn’t know I could live like this. I cried five times watching the Lion King live action movie. Emotionally flat? Nope, all good.
The biggest difference was the change in emotional capacity. The weeks after I started medication were a string of crisis after crisis, all while I was preparing to imminently go to grad school. My boss had to immediately be placed on medical leave for a spinal injury and people were looking to me to make important decisions. I had to hire and train my replacement – my first time dabbling in the HR component. My team let an employee go, shifting many of their responsibilities on to me. I had to call in a police report for a man wielding a knife and watched police fire a bean bag gun and restrain him. I didn’t know it was a bean bag gun when they initially pulled it out and fired, and bean bag guns look a lot like shotguns to a naive eye.
All these things piled up, and it stressed me out, but I was able to deal with these obstacles instead of simply shutting down. It really demonstrated to me the difference between stress and anxiety. It became overwhelmingly clear to me that I had been really sick, and for a really long time.
Now that I resolved the serotonin deficiency, I finally had the capacity to internalize all the things I had been working on with my counsellor and use the strategies we talked about. I noticed that I’m now able to prioritize myself. I still connect with the people I care about, but I don’t physically feel their pain. I’m able to separate what I want from what I think others want me to do. I don’t feel the need to put energy into things that don’t bring me joy. I started to actually believe myself when I said “those negative thoughts and feelings aren’t real”. This is the most confident and capable I have ever felt both personally and professionally.
I’m not a doctor, but if my experience has taught me anything, it’s that you should go see one if you’re struggling with your mental health. They’re professionals for a reason.